There is a growing demand for non-stop and uninterrupted operation on servers. Hence these days most servers are designed with hot-plug capability. Such a design allows malfunctioning or damaged facilities to be replaced immediately. System maintenance people can replace or insert the hot-plug equipment while the application programs are still running without shutting down or re-starting the machine.
Furthermore, the hot-plug equipment also has a fastening structure for coupling with the server. The most commonly adopted approach is fastening the hot-plug equipment to the server with screws with hand tools. However, such an approach makes fast insertion or replacement of the hot-plug equipment impossible. Maintenance tasks are therefore cumbersome.
A fan is the most commonly used hot-plug item. A kind of hot-plug fan has a plastic hook to couple with the fan. The fan mounted in a server may be replaced without using hand tools. Or, the fan may be inserted in a housing compartment and anchored on the server. However, the upper lid of the server has to be opened to perform maintenance tasks. As a result, additional difficulties occur to the maintenance task.